Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death

Written in Irv Yalom's inimitable story-telling style, Staring
at the Sun is a profoundly encouraging approach to the
universal issue of mortality. In this magisterial opus, capping a
lifetime of work and personal experience, Dr. Yalom helps us
recognize that the fear of death is at the heart of much of our
anxiety. Such recognition is often catalyzed by an "awakening
experience"—a dream, or loss (the death of a loved one,
divorce, loss of a job or home), illness, trauma, or aging.

Once we confront our own mortality, Dr. Yalom writes, we are
inspired to rearrange our priorities, communicate more deeply with
those we love, appreciate more keenly the beauty of life, and
increase our willingness to take the risks necessary for personal
fulfillment.

Irvin D. Yalom, M.D., is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine. The author of the definitive textbooks The Theory and Practice of Psychotherapy and Existential Psychotherapy, Dr. Yalom also wrote the New York Times best seller Love's Executioner and the international best-selling novel When Nietzsche Wept.

"Philosophical it is, but never arid with theory. Its lively
chapters are populated with patients whose raw angst Yalom refines
into vignettes that are always enlightening and often quite
moving." (Washington Post, February 24, 2008)

The philosopher Martin Heidegger once remarked that we can live
intensely only if we stare death in the face every moment of our
lives. Bestselling psychiatrist Yalom (Love's Executioner)
attempts to put this principle into practice in a sometimes
thoughtful, often repetitious book. Drawing on literature and film,
as well as conversations with his patients, Yalom demonstrates how
the fear of retirement, concerns about changing jobs or moving to
another city, or changes in family status (such as the empty nest)
are rooted in our deepest, most inescapable fear: of death. Yet, he
says, this anxiety can prompt an awakening to life and help us
realize our connections to others and our influence on those around
us. Through such experiences we can transcend our sense of
“finiteness and transiency” and live in the here and
now. In a final chapter, Yalom offers instructions for therapists
seeking to help their patients overcome death anxiety. Although in
the 1980s Yalom, now 76, provided new insights into the human
psyche with his innovative method of “existential
psychotherapy,” this book recycles well-known philosophical
insights, but Yalom's humane, calm voice may bring them to a new
audience. (Feb.) (Publishers Weekly, November 5,
2007)

"Staring at the Sun is neither textbook nor mere
self-help. Philosophical it is, but never arid with theory. Its
lively chapters are populated with patients whose raw angst Yalom
refines into vignettes that are always enlightening and often quite
moving." -- Washington Post

"So what to do about the dread of death? ... [Yalom's] key
prescriptions are true connections with others, a feeling one has
lived well and "rippling" - having positive impacts and memories
live on in others after you die. These deceptively obvious goals
are, obviously, not easily attained: What thinking and feeling
person truly lives a life with no regrets? But they are inarguably
worthwhile ones." -- San Francisco Chronicle

"Irv Yalom has written a beautiful and courageous book - a book
that comforts even as it explores and confronts death. Yalom helps
us understand that we must all come to grips with a paradox: The
physicality of death destroys us; the idea of death saves
us."
—George Valliant, author of Aging Well, and
Director of the Harvard Medical School Study of Adult Development

"Staring at the Sun is a thoughtful reinforcement of the
stoicism that we all need in a time when babble and denial are all
the rage."
—Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not
Great

"Staring at the Sun looks experientially and
psycho-dynamically at our deepest fear, and describes with uncommon
eloquence and deep humanity how we may arrive at a form of peace.
The book is witty and kind and unflinching, a generous mediation
that should give comfort to the dying and to those they leave
behind."
—Andrew Solomon, author, The Noonday Demon,
winner of the National Book Award

"Irvin Yalom has written a brave, intelligent book on the last
forbidden subject—death. I honor his courage and rare
insight."
—Erica Jong, author, Fear of Flying,
Shylock’s Daughter, Inventing Memory, and
Sappho’s Leap

"Yalom is the Scherherazade of the couch, his work a marvelous
exercise in storytelling."
—Laura Miller, New York Times

"This thoughtful treatment of the ultimate fear has much to
offer people of faith, especially Western Christians. Instead of
fearing death, which gave birth to religion itself, we can confront
it in a true act of faith, and stop denying it through fantasies of
immorality. This is a wise book by a wise man about the most taboo
of all subjects. Read it, and fear not."
—Robin Meyers, minister of Mayflower UCC Church of
Oklahoma City, and author of Why the Christian Right is
Wrong

"One of America's finest therapists guides us through one of
life's most challenging tasks in this profoundly helpful book. It
will benefit anyone who reads it."
—Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things
Happen To Good People

"Irvin Yalom writes like an angel about the devils that besiege
us."
—Rollo May

"In Staring at the Sun, Dr. Yalom shares with us the
problems of his patients linked to their mortality, his
compassionate, healing insight into their death anxiety, and
perhaps most movingly, his own feelings and personal experiences
with death. While the existential realities of death, isolation,
and meaningless may seem at first bleak and full of despair, Dr.
Yalom's existential approach helps his readers frame these
realities in positive and meaningful ways that foster personal
growth and intensify our connections to others and to the world
around us."
—Harold Ramis, Actor, Writer and Director,
Ghostbuster, Groundhog Day, and Analyze
This

Instructors

Permissions

To apply for permission please send your request to permissions@wiley.com with
specific details of your requirements. This should include, the Wiley title(s), and the specific portion of the content you wish to re-use
(e.g figure, table, text extract, chapter, page numbers etc), the way in which you wish to re-use it, the circulation/print run/number of people
who will have access to the content and whether this is for commercial or academic purposes. If this is a republication request please include details
of the new work in which the Wiley content will appear.